tightened his grip on her waist and swirled her round, then took the opportunity to kiss her again. ‘There’s sweet-talking.’
‘Obviously you’re good at that, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.’ Her palms touched his chest as she giggled. A jolt of awareness surged through him.
If he didn’t get her into bed soon he’d go mad, but if she needed convincing he could do that. He could do slow. He could wait. God knew, she was worth it.
He reached for the top button of her blouse and carefully undid it, then whispered into her neck, ‘And there’s shop talk... We really could discuss updating the policies.’
‘Woo. Infection control has suddenly got very attractive.’ She stepped back. ‘But now you’ve just reminded me of another good reason why we shouldn’t be doing this. Work.’
‘I can think of lots of reasons why all of this could be really dumb, but can’t say I’m focusing on those right now. Good God, woman. Let me kiss you.’ Okay, so slow was killing him.
His lips brushed just behind her ear and he inhaled her sweet fragrance. Managed three more buttons. Just enough to reveal the lace of her bra and the creamy skin of her breasts. ‘Extra-curricular bonding. That can only help team relations.’
‘I don’t know. It seems so wrong. Ooh.’ Curling deeper into his arms, she gasped as he ran fingers over the lace cup of her bra. Her words and actions were out of sync. ‘What if people find out? I don’t want to be the subject of gossip, I’ve only just started there. I don’t want my clean slate sullied.’
‘Sullied? By me? I do not sully.’ Reaching behind her, he unfastened the bra, skimmed his fingers over her skin and tweaked a nipple, enjoying the tight puckering at his touch. ‘So we keep it to ourselves. Our secret. Seriously, no one needs to know.’
‘I mean it. No one, not Mitchell or anyone.’
At the mention of his brother the familiar irritation rushed through him. He dropped his hand to his side. ‘Like I’d tell him anything.’
‘Don’t you have some kind of spooky twin telepathy? Doesn’t he know already?’
‘Nah. But we do understand each other well enough to keep our distance.’ His hand slid to her hip. ‘Let’s not talk about him. This is much more fun.’
She didn’t look convinced. ‘We’re both woefully bad at sharing things about ourselves.’
‘But we’re very good at making each other feel better about it. Neither of us wants to get involved. When it’s over, it’s over. We walk away.’ He ran his thumb over her swollen lips. ‘No harm done.’
‘Really? You think that’s likely?’ She licked round the thumb tip, sending wild jolts of electricity through him. Then she sucked his thumb deep into her mouth. And out. And he felt powerless against this raging need zipping through him.
‘We’re consenting adults. We both know the score.’
She smiled hesitantly. ‘So we do this? Bed buddies? Friends with benefits?’
‘Can you stop it?’
She shook her head and stared at his chest, thought a while. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘So we do it when we want to. Because we want to. As soon as we stop wanting to we call it quits. We may not want to spill our guts over our past lives, but we can at least be totally upfront about this. As soon as the spark dies, we’re out.’
Tilting her chin up to him, he finally, finally held her gaze. Caught the need and the fire and knew it mirrored exactly what was in his eyes, too. But there was a glimmer of fear, too. Something that begged him not to hurt her. She was protecting herself. Had she been hurt before?
When her mouth opened he covered it again before she could add to her damned list. Add to his own list.
And he promised her, with his kiss, that he wouldn’t hurt her. Not if he could help it.
They didn’t need a conversation, didn’t need a mating dance. Didn’t need anything to convince them they were headed straight to bed. They both knew it was as inevitable as night following day.
When he pulled away her breathing was ragged. Her eyes filled with the mist he’d seen the other day. The one that told him she needed him. Now.
‘Which leads me nicely on to the best kind of talking...pillow talk.’ He nuzzled against her throat as his fingers ripped her blouse off and dropped her bra to the floor. Eyes feasting on her two perfect breasts, he felt the smile spread through his